Aperture Science Afterlife: Part II
by E1craZ4life
Summary: Part II of my ASA saga. Same deal as Part I, just dealing with Portal 2. Mortar story will be updated with enough reviews of the brick stories by Chell, GLaDOS, and Wheatley, accessible through my profile. Obviously, availability to update will vary. Updating: [Y]
1. Part 4, Chapter 1

**Part IV: Wanderers of Science**  
Chapter One

* * *

Chelsea had left the room when I woke up, and I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. I got myself dressed and left to go look for her.

I saw Martha and Victor wandering the halls talking to each other. Judging from the fact that they were whispering, I took it as a sign to keep my voice low.

"Hey, uh, eider o' ya know where Chelsea ran off ta?"

Martha responded. "She went to the cafeteria with Mr. Pendleton."

"Aright, tanks." I was about to head off when I realized... "How do I git dere from here?"

Victor displayed a map on the computer in his arm. "It's right over here. Think you can find it?"

"Yep. I tink I got it." With that, I made my way to the cafeteria.

* * *

When I got there, I found Chelsea and Wheatley sitting at a table talking.

"I got it the first time you told me, Wheatley. You don't have to keep saying it. And I've already told you that I - " Chelsea noticed me walking up to the table, "oh, hey, Frank."

"Hey, Chelsea. Whatcha bin up to?"

"Nothing. I was just trying to get a few questions off my chest with Wheatley."

"Yeah? Like what?"

Chelsea stood up. "Could you excuse us for a second, Wheatley? I just wanted to talk to Frank for a bit."

"Er, yeah, sure. I'll just go and, erm..." he pushed himself out of his seat, "...go grab a cup of paraffin."

"Sure, go ahead." Chelsea led me to another table on the other side of the cafeteria, and we seated ourselves across from each other.

"So, what were ya lookin' t'ask Wheatley dere?"

Chelsea cleared her throat. "Well, you see, Frank, from what I'd seen of Wheatley ever since that plane landed on the driveway, he seemed very different from when I first met him."

"Well, y'ain't never seen him durin' da time dat you'd bin tellin' da folks 'bout so far."

"Yeah, I know that. The next part of my story is me meeting him face-to-plate for the first time. What I'm saying is that..." she seemed hung up on her words, "...well, you saw how he was talking during all the interactions in GLaDOS's chamber, right?"

"Yeah. Wut about 'em?"

"Well, during my time with Wheatley, he did have a tendency to..." Chelsea snapped her fingers, "...oh, what the word?... bungle up his talking. Like, he would... um, get hung up on words, try to take back what he says, or just... it's like he didn't know what to say or how to say it."

"Y'mean like yer doin' now?"

Chelsea saw my point. "Right. So, I talked to him about his apparent behavioral changes, and from what he told me, he said that he would explain it when we got back to storytelling in GLaDOS's chamber. Although he did tell me that much of it was because he had a lot of time to think about our time together in the time between me escaping and him returning."

"Well, yeah, fi'teen monts oughta be more'n 'nuff time ta tink 'boutcha." That's when something occurred to me. "Doe now datcha mention it, 'e di'n seem ta react ta seein' ya fer da firss time in ages like mos people would."

"He said that you being there kind of spoiled the moment, having to explain who he was and me having to explain how I knew him. Not to mention GLaDOS bringing us down here, which led to me, GLaDOS, and Wheatley telling our stories to them to explain everything that's been happening to them."

"Well, shucks, dat ain't too much help, ain't it?"

Chelsea shook her head. "No, it's not. I figured now was a good time to talk to him since there wasn't anyone we'd have to explain everything to while we said what we wanted to."

"But y'had a lotta time ta git wit him fer dat, y'know."

"Not exactly. I was occupied with talking to you about the outside world and how I was going to fit in with society, especially since the world is on the road to recovery from aliens taking over the world. And while you were out harvesting wheat, GLaDOS had asked me to talk with Her in private."

"'Bout wut?"

"About some stuff we haven't reached in our storytelling yet."

"Yeah, well, maybe when dis is all over, maybe I can tell ya 'bout my life on da surface durin' the rule o' da Combine er sumtin'."

Chelsea shrugged. "We'll see. But first, Wheatley, GLaDOS, and I need to finish our storytelling. And I don't think She'll be inclined to let anyone go before they know the full story."

"Well, She did lemme out so I could harvest ma' wheat fields."

"But you did have to promise not to tell anyone about what was going on down here before She let you up to the surface."

"Right."

"And you had to carry a tracker while you were up there."

"Dat I did. Dat I did."

"So, I'd be inclined to say that She let you out on a leash."

I just shrugged. "I guess. 'Course, c'nsid'rin' dat She seemed like one tough ol' bit o' m'chin'ry, I'm s'pris'd dat you even came back 'ere, let 'lone bring a hundr'd tirty-six oder folks along fer da ride."

"Well, eight of those people were Aperture's people." She paused to contemplate her word choice. "Robots?" She flicked her hand in dismissal. "Anyway, they're Aperture property, so I don't think GLaDOS would be too happy about them not being here."

"But whadda 'bout all dem oder folks from dat airplane? Dey ain't got no business bein' 'ere."

"Well, I wasn't going to let them stay locked in your barn, was I?" Chelsea folded her arms. "Plus, we didn't have any way to break down any of the doors. Not that you would've taken kindly to it, anyway."

"'Ey, all I did wuz ask ya a quesshun; y'ain't gotta be such a bullsquid 'bout it!"

"A what?"

"Never mind. Less git to GLaDOS's chamber n' git dis show back on da road."

"Alright." Chelsea got her Companion Cube and followed me and the Cores.

* * *

All the other people were gathered along the wall of the chamber and talking amongst each other. GLaDOS was the first one to see us come in.

"Ah, here they are. The guest stars have arrived."

"Good morning to you, too, GLaDOS." Chelsea walked to the center of the floor.

Wheatley followed her. "You don't suppose I could stand in the middle with you?"

Chelsea looked to the android. "Hm?"

"Just so we don't have to keep walking back and forth every time the narration changes."

Chelsea bounced her paper stack on her knee. "If you promise not to interrupt me while I'm reading."

"So, does that mean that I should be quiet until it's my turn to talk?"

"You can answer a question if someone ask you one. You only have to stay quiet while GLaDOS and I are reading."

"Right. So, that's a yes, then?"

Chelsea smiled. "Yes."

As soon as everyone settled down, GLaDOS dimmed the lights, keeping a spotlight on so Chelsea could read.

Wheatley looked around. "Is everyone ready?"

Everyone responded with a simultaneous "Yes."

"Alright." He patted Chelsea's Companion Cube. "Take it away, Chelsea."

GLaDOS nodded. "Metaphorically, of course."

"We know!" Wheatley and Chelsea responded together.


	2. Chell's Story: Chapter D1a

**Chell's Story: Part D  
** Episode I, Chapter One

* * *

 _Episode I: The Courtesy Call_

I was aroused from my slumber for what had to be the thousandth time, but this time, everything was in shambles. The walls were peeling, the furniture had fallen apart, and the smell of algae was thick in the air. The wake-up chime was severely distorted, and the voice from the loudspeaker sounded drunk as he spoke.

"¡Buenos días! Usted ha estado en suspensión para nueve - nueve - nueve - nueve - nueve..." the sound of a record scratching pierced the air before the message continued. "Esta llama de cortesía es informarlo que todos sujetos de prueba deben salir el Centro de Enriquecimiento immediatamente. Cualquier sujetos de prueba no emergiendo de suspensión a este tiempo estarán suponido haber ejercido su derecho quedarse en Descanso Aumentado para la duración de la destrucción de este edificio. Si usted tiene preguntas o preocupaciones sobre este norma, o si usted requere una versión de Inglés idioma de este mensaje, sienta libro tomar un pedazo de papel de cortesía del cajón escritorio en frente de lo y escriba una carta a nos. Tiena suerte."

Being bilingual in Spanish and English, I had no difficulty understanding what was being said.

But no sooner had the announcement ended, a furious banging sounded from the door to the room.

"Hello? Anyone in there?" There was more knocking. "Hello? Are you... going to open the door? A-Any time?"

The voice sounded male, and I was inclined to believe that there was a British accent to it. Unsure of why I had a feeling that that was an important detail, I walked over to the door, losing my footing and falling against the door, grabbing the handle as I went down.

The door started to open, and the voice chirped enthusiastically "Ha! I knew someone was alive in here!"

I regained my footing and pulled the door open the rest of the way, being smacked in the face by a jumpsuit as a scream sounded from the other side.

Recovering from the graze to my face, I could see where the voice was coming from: a tall man in a white suit and tie with a white fedora. He looked to be struggling to carry several items, one of which was an orange jumpsuit, and he had his face turned away and his arm in front of it.

He started to turn around to face me. "Oh, God! You look te - " his eyes eased open, shining intense blue light on me, and as soon as he saw me, he hastily regained his composure, "erm... ahem... er, good. Looking good, actually."

He started laughing nervously as he slipped into the room, slamming the door shut with his foot and holding out his arm which had the jumpsuit draped over it. I took it off his person, and started putting it on as he made his way into the room, talking all the way.

"Are you... okay? I mean, are you..." I opened my mouth to answer, "er, don't... answer that; I'm absolutely sure you're fine. There's plenty of time for you to recover; erm, just take it slow."

He set down a large pair of boots on the bed in time for the voice to announce "Please prepare for emergency evacuation!"

I had gotten the jumpsuit over my legs at that point, and I thought I wouldn't have time to put it on the rest of my body, so I just tied the sleeves around my waist.

I followed the man to the wardrobe as his already fast speech increased in pace. "Okay, stay calm! Stay - Stay - Stay calm! 'Prepare'. That's all he's saying, 'prepare'; it's all fine." He opened the wardrobe and went in, holding me back from entering. "Alright, don't move; I'm gonna get us out of here."

He closed the door behind him, pausing only to tell me "Oh, erm... you... might want to hang onto something. Word of advice; up to you."

I was a little confused as to why I'd need to hold onto something, but before I could ask him through the door why I'd need to hold onto something, the room started to shake. The desk on the opposite wall buckled, the pieces knocking me back onto the bed where the boots were.

"Are you alright back there? Can you hear me? ... Hello?"

I was trying to catch my breath from the sudden shock and was unable to answer him.

The wardrobe door opened up, and the man stepped out. He picked up the boots from the bed and put them on my feet. As he did so, I took a good look at the man.

He was fairly tall, maybe six feet, and had a slim build to him. He was wearing a shiny metallic lab coat over a blue collar shirt and white tie. A name plate on the coat bore the name Wheatley handwritten with a black grease pencil. In the very middle of his chest where the top coat button would be, there was a large blue light about the size of his hand. His pants were blue, and shiny like his lab coat. His shoes were black and shiny. Even his white skin seemed to shine, as did his long blue hair. The only thing that didn't shine was his blue fedora band. He was wearing glasses with round frames, which did nothing to dampen the glow from his blue eyes. Actually, his irises were white; the rest of his eyes were blue.

And he had been talking the entire time he was getting the boots on my feet.

When he was undoing the three sets of suitcase buckles on one boot. "Most test subjects do experience some... erm, cognitive deterioration after a few months in suspension." As he opened it up like a hotdog bun and fastened it over my foot. "Now, you've been under... for quite a lot longer,... and it's not out of the question that... you might have a very minor case of... serious brain damage." As he unbuckled the other boot and put it on my other foot. "But don't be alarmed, alright? Er, although if you do... erm, feel alarmed, try to hold onto that feeling. Because... that is the, erm, proper reaction to - to being told that - that you've got brain damage." As he finished fastening the buckles and stepped back to let me stand. "D-Do you understand... what I'm saying? At all? Does any of this... make any sense? Just tell me. Just say yes."

I was too preoccupied with looking at the boots that Wheatley had put on me. They were extremely comfortable, which I found a little disturbing, but I was more focused on the springs attached to the back of the boots. They looked like the ankle braces I'd worn during my time testing, and they appeared to be serving the same function here. A quick jump confirmed that they did.

Only then did I realize that Wheatley had stopped talking.

Because he started talking again.

"Okay. Er, what you're doing there is jumping. Er, you just... you just jumped." He reached into his shirt pocket under his lab coat. "But, never mind. Say 'apple'." He took one out of his shirt pocket and showed it to me. "'Apple'."

It did surprise me that he had an apple in his pocket for no apparent reason. But before I could comply with his request, the sound of an alarm made me jump.

He didn't seem to notice that I hadn't said anything. "Okay, you know what? That's close enough. Er, just hang tight!" He ran back into the wardrobe, tossing the apple over his shoulder toward me, which I caught, and slammed the door shut behind him.

The loudspeaker promptly announced "All reactor core safeguards are now nonfunctional; please prepare for reactor core meltdown."

The room started to tilt, and the back wall sheared apart, revealing that the room was moving upward through a large open space held up only by steel framework.

As the room continued upward, banging into the support structure, I could hear Wheatley talking from behind the closet doors.

"Okay, listen! I wasn't going to tell you this, but... I'm in pretty hot water here!" The room struck a post and things started falling out. "How are you doing back there? Are you still holding on?" There was a notable grunt from behind the doors. "The reserve power ran out, and so, of course, the whole Relaxation Center stops waking up the bloody test subjects."

We kept moving higher and higher, striking the wall ahead of us repeatedly. "Hold on; this is a bit tricky." There was another grunt. "And of course, nobody tells me anything. No, why should they tell me anything?" The rocking room hit the stack again. "Why should I be kept informed? You know? About the life functions of the 10,000 bloody test subjects I'm supposed to be in charge of?"

The wall collapsed, and the room slowed down before lunging forward. "¡Ay! That's close. Can you see? Am I going to make it through? Have I got enough space?" I was so paralyzed with fear that I couldn't answer him. "Er, I-I just gotta get through here." The room hit a room and sent it falling away. "Oof! I, er, just gotta concentrate."

We were climbing again, and then moving forward. "And whose fault do you think it's gonna be when the management comes down here and finds 10,000 flipping vegetables?" We hit a set of girders, and the room's structure started to peel. "Argh! See, now I hit that one. I hit that one." The room flew violently to the left, knocking away another room. "Okay, listen, we should get our stories straight, alright? If anyone asks,... and, erm, no one's gonna ask; don't worry,... but, erm, if anyone asks, tell them as far as you know, the last time you checked, everyone looked... pretty much alive, alright? Not dead."

We turned to the right, and I could see an approaching wall with a painted sign: "Docking Station 001-04; 500 feet below". Wheatley was still talking at that point. "Okay, almost there. On the other side of that wall is one of the old testing tracks. There's a piece of equipment in there that we're gonna need to get out of here. Er,... I think this is a docking station. Get ready!"

The room lurched forward and slammed into the wall, creating a dent. "Good news: that is not a docking station. So there's one mystery solved." The room backed away. "Erm, I'm going to attempt a manual override on this wall; it could get a bit technical. Hold on."

It flew into the wall again, crumbling it and the room further, then flew backward faster and further than before. "Almost there! Remember: you're looking for a gun that makes holes. Not bullet holes, but... don't worry; you'll figure it out." I knew what he was talking about. "Seriously do hold on this time."

As the room flew forward, I stuck the apple in my mouth and grabbed the wardrobe door's handles. The room hit the wall, sending dust and debris everywhere. I was thrown forward, and the wardrobe doors came away in my hands, covering my body as it sprawled across the mattress and shielding it from falling rubble.

I kicked the doors away to see Wheatley leaving the wardrobe in the settling dust. "Whew! There we go." He brushed the dust off his coat, and shook the debris out of his hair. He adjusted his glasses as I took the apple from my mouth and chewed the bite I had taken from it. "Now, I'll be honest; you are... probably... in no fit state to run this particular type of cognitive gauntlet. But, erm,... at least you're a good jumper, so... you got the... got the jumping on your side." He waved me through the hole in the wall. "Erm, just do your best, and... I'll meet you up ahead."

I took another bite from the apple and jumped off the bed through the gaping hole in the wall.

"That's the spirit! Good luck!"


	3. Chell's Story: Chapter D1b

**Chell's Story: Part D**  
Episode I, Chapter Two

* * *

I walked through the rubble-strewn area, looking around at the moss-covered rocks and algae-infested water streaks forming dendrites in the concrete. As I searched for an exit, the ground below me suddenly collapsed.

I fell forward and expected to fall flat on my face; but instead, I landed on my feet. I recognized the room I was in as a Relaxation Vault, though it was now in deep disrepair.

The announcer came on again. "Hello, and again, welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. We are currently experiencing technical difficulties due to circumstances of potentially apocalyptic significance beyond our control; however, thanks to Emergency Testing Protocols, testing can continue. These pre-recorded messages will provide instructional and motivational support so that science can still be done, even in the event of environmental, social, economic, or structural collapse. The portal will open and emergency testing will begin in 3... 2... 1..."

The orange portal appeared on the solid wall in front of me, and I walked through, finding myself outside the vault. I walked all the way around to the test chamber.

The test was exactly as I remembered it; a Vital Apparatus Vent, a button, and a door opened by the button. The only difference aside from the deteriorating condition of the chamber was that the cube that fell out of the Vent was only about half as big as I remembered them.

"Cube- and button-based testing remains an important tool for science, even in a dire emergency. If cube- and button-based testing caused this emergency, don't worry; the odds of this happening twice are very slim."

I put the apple in my mouth and picked up the cube. The cube still weighed the same, but wasn't as awkward to carry as before. Dropping it on the button caused the room to shake. One side of the door opened, while the other slid back and forth continuously.

Removing the apple from my mouth and chewing the bite I took from it, I went through the malfunctioning door. After going through, another door opened, revealing a translucent green film where the door was.

"Please note the incandescent particle field across the exit. This Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grill will vaporize any unauthorized equipment that passes through it."

I walked through the grill and down the stairs to a waiting elevator in a glass tube. Even though the building was falling apart, the elevator seemed to work perfectly.

* * *

The elevator ride lasted long enough to eat all the way around the outside of the apple, which was about the size of a billiard ball. As the elevator slowed to a stop, the announcer came up.

"If you feel liquid running down your neck, relax, lie on your back, and apply immediate pressure to your temples; you are simply experiencing a rare reaction in which the Material Emancipation Grill may have emancipated the ear tubes inside your head."

I massaged my neck as I walked up the stairs, but didn't feel any liquid running down my neck. The implications of dissolved ear tubes would've been much worse than missing teeth.

I approached the ledge, and remembered how I landed on my feet in the Relaxation Vault even though I had belly-flopped through the collapsing ceiling. I hopped down and landed on my feet in Test Chamber 01.

It was similar to what I had seen the first time, but this time, the blue portals were opened with buttons instead of automatically opening and closing. In each sealed off room was a cube, a button, or the exit door.

I walked over to the cube room and pushed the button. I quickly ate away the top half of the apple before getting the cube. I was able to carry it with one arm out of the room and place it next to the orange portal.

Walking up to the button room, I opened the portal to that room before polishing away the bottom half of the apple. Then I took the cube to the button and put it down on top of it.

Leaving the room, I opened the portal to the exit and picked away the rest of the edible parts of the apple as I walked through the exit door.

"Good. Because of the technical difficulties we are currently experiencing, your test environment is unsupervised."

Rubble was piling up in the shaft above the elevator, but I knew it was my only way out.

"Before reentering a Relaxation Vault at the conclusion of testing, please take a moment to write down the results of your test. An Aperture Science Reintegration Associate will revive you for an interview when society has been rebuilt."

* * *

The elevator arrived at Test Chamber 02, and the announcer was talking again. "If the Earth is currently governed by a manner of animal king, sentient cloud, or other governing body that either refuses to or is incapable of listening to reason,... - "

The message cut off as I entered the test chamber and went down the stairs beyond the entrance. I saw Wheatley appear from behind a crumpled wall on a chair suspended from a rail.

"Hey! You made it!" Wheatley laughed.

I tossed the spent apple core to him, and he caught it, after which he pointed to the middle of the chamber.

"There should be a, erm, portal device on the podium over there." He put a hand on his forehead and looked in the distance. "I can't see it, though; maybe it fell off." He gestured toward the middle of the chamber. "Do you want to go have a quick look?"

The chamber wall that would've blocked my path to the podium had collapsed, allowing me to walk through to look for the portal gun. The gun was indeed missing from the podium, so I scoured around the base of it to see if it fell off. But as soon as I reached the podium, the floor collapsed under my feet again.

"WHOA!" My utterance was overshadowed by Wheatley's identical response.

I was falling headfirst down a deep pit and thought for sure I would break my neck in half and/or my head open. But I flipped right-side-up at the last second and landed feet first in a shallow puddle. And I was completely unhurt from the impact.

Up above, Wheatley's voice echoed down. "Hello? ... Can you see the portal gun?"

I looked around the place, but couldn't see it. I was about to search the toe-deep water for the gun, but I heard Wheatley's voice again.

"Also, are you alive? Yeah, that's important; I should've asked that first."

I was about to holler up to him, but I was interrupted before I could do so.

"Erm, do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to work off the assumption that you're still alive,... and I'm just going to wait for you up ahead. I'll just... I'll wait for one hour, erm,... and then I'll come back and... assuming I can locate your dead body, I'll... I'll bury you, alright? Brilliant! Go team! See you in an hour! Hopefully if you're... if you're not, er, dead."

I looked around the room and started wading through the shallow water. I came across a set of panels with murals painted on them, which surrounded a set of panels which formed a path up to where a portal gun was sitting. As expected, when I stuck my hand under the gun's hood, it grabbed onto my wrist on its own accord.

An orange portal opened itself near a catwalk, and testing the portal gun I had just picked up confirmed that it could only shoot blue portals. I aimed the portal gun at a mural of me standing in front of GLaDOS giving me a piece of cake. Whoever drew it must have been here for a long time to be able to draw that.

I pulled the trigger and a blue portal blanketed the painting. Walking through, I found myself on a ledge leading up to the remains of an office. The furniture was in disrepair, and plants had sprouted in the nooks and crannies of the formerly white walls. I searched around the place until I found myself in Test Chamber 03.

There was another announcement. "Some emergency testing may require prolonged interaction with lethal military androids. Rest assured that all lethal military androids have been taught to read and provided with one copy of the Laws of Robotics to share."

The test was as straightforward as when I had gone through it the first time. Portal at the entrance, walk through, portal at the exit, and walk through again.

"Good. If you feel that a lethal military android has not respected your rights as detailed in the Laws of Robotics, please note it on your self-reporting form. A future Aperture Science Entitlement Associate will initiate the appropriate grievance-filing paperwork."

The announcement didn't seem relevant, so I didn't pay attention to it. The elevator pushed its way up through a stack of rubble and opened its doors, allowing me to enter the elevator. The doors closed behind me, and I went on to the next test.


	4. Chell's Story: Chapter D1c

**Chell's Story: Part D**  
Episode I, Chapter Three

* * *

The elevator stopped, and I proceeded to Test Chamber 04. Again, it was the same as before, except that it was falling apart.

"This next test is very dangerous. To help you remain tranquil in the face of almost certain death, smooth jazz will be deployed in 3... 2... 1..."

The sound of a saxophone resonated throughout the chamber as I portaled a cube from the pit below and carried it to the button that opened the door. As soon as the button was depressed, the music started to wind down, and then cut out as I made my way through the hall to Chamber 05.

Once I reached Chamber 05, another announcement came on. "At the time of this recording, federal disclosure policies require us to inform you that this next test is probably lethal, and to redirect you to a safer test environment; we will attempt to comply with these now nonexistent agencies by playing some more smooth jazz."

There was no sound following that message except for a faint hum emanating from the pre-generated portal in the test chamber. As was the case the last time I was here, there were two buttons that operated the exit door.

Remembering how I solved the test last time, I got the first cube out of the pit and portaled myself to where it landed. I pushed the cube off the platform with my foot before portaling the other cube from the other platform and repeating suit.

Once both cubes were in the appropriate places, the announcement system came on again. "Great work. Because this message is pre-recorded, any observations related to your performance are speculation on our part; please disregard any undeserved compliments."

I walked through the door, which closed behind me, and shot a portal at my feet. I fell through as I had done previously. This time, I broke the window when I landed on it; the glass held somewhat together in its frame, but the frame itself buckled on three of its four edges.

I climbed into the hall, which was barricaded with fallen structural components. Two fallen wall panels allowed me to get around the barricade, and through the detour was a staircase leading to a den like the ones I had seen before and after my first escape attempt.

Heading back down the stairs, I went down to the waiting elevator to the next test chamber.

* * *

I wasn't sure whether or not to be surprised when I got off the elevator and found myself in Test Chamber 08. What did surprise me was that the test chamber itself seemed to have had a renovated design.

"If the Enrichment Center is currently being bombarded with fireballs, meteorites, or other objects from space, please avoid unsheltered testing areas wherever a lack of shelter from space debris does not appear to be a deliberate part of the test."

Decaying ceiling panels blocked my path, but the uncovered floor appeared portalable. I opened a portal beneath me and then suddenly fell out of a wall. I was automatically positioned to stand upright before landing on the floor below.

Looking around, I could see two Vital Apparatus Vents across a pit filled with toxic liquid. There was a button on the floor, and stepping on it raised a staircase to a platform which housed the sealed exit door.

Stepping off the button on the floor, I pushed a pedestal button overlooking the pit. A cube fell onto the level white surface in the corner of the chamber, and I portaled it to where I was. I carried it to the button and set it down.

At the top of the staircase, I found another floor button and two pedestal buttons. The floor button opened the exit door, while one pedestal button dropped a cube from the other Vital Apparatus Vent. This time, the portal surface wasn't level, and it was further below the vent than in the previous case.

Pushing the other button raised a platform above the pit of liquid for about two seconds. I put a portal under the second Vent and pushed the drop button. The cube fell through, flew across the floor, and landed in the liquid. Repeating the process, I pushed the button to extend the panel and save the cube. The cube was within reach, and I brought it up to the button to open the door.

"Well done! The Enrichment Center reminds you that although circumstances may appear bleak, you are not alone; all Aperture Science Personality Constructs will remain functional in apocalyptic, low-power environments of as few as 1.1 volts."

Little could I have realized the importance of that information.

* * *

When the elevator reached the next test, I could see that I had again skipped ahead; now I was at Test Chamber 10.

The announcement gave me hope that the chamber wasn't completely changed. "This next test applies the principles of momentum to movement through portals. If the laws of physics no longer apply in the future, God help you."

I rolled my eyes as I put a portal on the wall at the end of the "hallway". Stepping through, I fell out of a portal high up on a wall overlooking a large "well" with a white floor. It confused me as to why I had yet to land on anything but my feet, so I decided to ask Wheatley when we met up again.

Portaling the floor of the well, I jumped in and soon found myself at the sealed exit. It was there that I noticed a window on the floor with a porthole in it. Within, I saw a cube which I recognized was necessary to open the door. I got it out with the portal gun, went over to where it fell, and flung myself back to the exit with the cube in tow.

Putting the cube on the button, I left as another announcement came on. "If you are a non-employee who has discovered this facility amid the ruins of civilization, welcome. And remember: testing is the future, and the future starts with you!"

The enthusiastic tone contrasted sharply with my reaction to the next part of the test. It had to be twice as big as the last part, and I had no idea what to do. Ahead of me was another well, with an orange portal generated at the base.

I looked around to see the equipment in the chamber; a button to open the exit on the right, and a cube on a platform to the left. The only portalable surfaces were on the wall behind me, which housed the chamber's entrance door. One of those panels was tilted upward, drawing my instincts to open a portal there.

After doing so, I jumped into the well and flew over to where the cube was. I repositioned the blue portal to direct me to the platform and dropped the cube into the well before following after it.

Once I was on the platform, I was able to reach the button and get the cube on it. The exit door opened and panels deployed underneath, facilitating access to the door. I returned to the well and jumped in after moving the portal slightly as a precaution.

As I landed, I somersaulted from the momentum through the door and down the stairs, finally slamming to a stop at the elevator door. The elevator door open a second later, and an announcement was made as junk piled on top of the elevator.

"Good work getting this far, future starter! That said, if you are simple-minded, old, or irradiated in such a way that the future should not start with you, please return to your primitive tribe, and send back someone better qualified for testing."

I would most certainly do that if I could.

I stood up and cracked my back before stepping into the elevator. There was one thing that certainly didn't change about Test Chamber 10, and that was that when I reached the exit, I was banged up like a rock in the washing machine.


	5. Part 4, Chapter 2

**Part IV: Wanderers of Science**  
Chapter Two

* * *

Wheatley put his hand on Chelsea's shoulder. "I know you didn't get the chance to ask me about the boots."

Chelsea was mildly annoyed by the interruption, but she knew better than to ignore it. "No, I didn't. I'm guessing you're going to explain them to me now?"

Wheatley nodded and rolled up his coat sleeve. Pressing buttons on the computer inside, he summoned what looked like a projector lens from the palm of his left hand.

He turned his attention to GLaDOS. "I am going to need a projector screen if you don't mind."

GLaDOS nodded. "I'll have it ready for you when you need it."

"Right." He walked over to Chelsea and held his arm up toward where she was facing. "So, the Long Fall Boot was an invention I made after discovering a serious problem with the ankle braces that test subjects were issued. Caroline?"

The projector screen emerged, and Wheatley cast a video recording of someone with a portal gun. "So, portal here, portal there..." he let off a soft laugh as the test subject went through the portal, "look at that thing go..." his laughter stopped as the test subject dropped the portal gun and started flailing around as he fell for a full three seconds and hit the floor below.

"So, yeah. The problem with the Advanced Knee Replacements is that they don't assist the test subject in orientating themselves such that their legs would take the brunt of the impact. And in stressful circumstances, it can be difficult for test subjects to perform such maneuvers."

GLaDOS nodded as Wheatley scrolled through his slide show of test subjects apparently meeting their fate through improper use of the ankle braces. "And when they hit the ground, it causes a lot of expensive equipment to get broken."

Chelsea rolled her eyes at GLaDOS's statement.

"But not to worry; I took care of it with the Long Fall Boot, a foot-based suit of armour for the Portal Device."

Chelsea adjusted her tank top straps. "So, what do these boots do to keep me oriented to always land feet first?"

Wheatley knelt down and picked up one of the boots that Chelsea was wearing. "These boots are equipped with tiny computers which basically serve as a second brain. They receive information from sensors on the outside of the boot regarding direction, velocity, current bodily motion, and the surroundings to calculate the likeliest time and point of impact, and send signals to the brain to adjust the body accordingly."

Chelsea nodded slowly as Wheatley showed off the boots' sensors. "So, these boots are pretty much doing half the thinking for me?"

"In terms of optimizing the survival chances from long drops, yes. Even if you _tried_ to land on your head while wearing these, you couldn't do it."

Chelsea giggled at that statement. "Yeah, I don't think I'm keen on taking that kind of chance. Especially since there isn't really a way into a test chamber from here."

"Yeah, you've been through more than enough already." Wheatley started spinning one of the tiny wheels in the toe of Chelsea's boot. "So, when I designed these, I also took to refining the boot's shock absorption technology."

"I figured as much."

"Yeah, with the Advanced Knee Replacements, it was just two curled pieces of metal surgically attached to the subject's thighs, and the heat cranked up to lubricate their feet with sweat to ensure they worked properly."

Chelsea looked up to GLaDOS. "Is that why I went through my first set of tests barefoot? So that I'd have sweaty feet to get the ankle braces to work?"

GLaDOS nodded. "In a sense, yes. Most footwear have souls that are made to promote friction, which would complicate the function of the Advanced Knee Replacements as a shock absorber."

Wheatley nodded. "With the Long Fall Boot, the springs have a pyramid texture which prevents it from sliding on impact, while the wheels in the toes allow the toes to move forward on impact, maximizing the boot's shock absorption while still allowing you to walk as though you were wearing normal footwear."

Chelsea nodded. "I see. Well, I suppose I should pick back up on my storytelling, then."

Wheatley nodded. "I'm not entirely sure if I was being rude not letting you talk while we were together."

"It's kind of a moot point at this point, Wheatley."

One passenger looked to GLaDOS. "Is that why you were surprised to hear Chelsea talking when she brought us down here?"

GLaDOS contemplated the thought. "You could say that, yes. I never did hear her talk at all, but I did believe that she was capable of speaking."

"Well, during the first tests, I thought I was alone until you tried to throw me into the fire pit, so I had no reason to talk out loud. Naturally, when I was trying to escape, I didn't say anything so I could get around more easily. When we finally met face-to-plate, I was consumed with the Cores that were attached to you as opposed to saying anything."

GLaDOS nodded. "And when you were with Mr. Pendleton, he had a propensity to ramble continuously and not let you say anything."

Chelsea nodded. "Pretty much. Anyway, on with the reading."


	6. Chell's Story: Chapter D1d

**Chell's Story: Part D**  
Episode I, Chapter Four

* * *

The elevator slowed to a stop at the entrance to the next test, and another announcement came on.

"To ensure that sufficient power remains for Core Testing Protocols, all safety devices have been disabled. The Enrichment Center respects your right to have questions or concerns about this policy."

I left the elevator and soon found myself at the entrance to Test Chamber 11. Again, I was in a sealed room overlooking the chamber, but it was in great disrepair. All the liquid had drained away, and the platform with the orange portal gun had crumbled. The windows surrounding me were cracked, but not broken, so I had to hope that an orange portal was open somewhere in the chamber.

Just as I was about to shoot a nearby wall, I heard Wheatley's voice in the distance. "Hey! ¡Oyé! Over here!"

I turned around and saw Wheatley in a suspended chair where the heavy door had been (the door was either gone or stuck open) and holding the orange portal gun. Putting his free hand down from waving to me, he fired a portal at the wall under the room I was in. I fired a blue portal on the wall next to me.

As soon as I walked through, Wheatley grew ecstatic. "Oh brilliant! You did find a portal gun!" He gave a light laugh. "Oh,... you know, it - it just goes to show: people with brain damage are the real heroes in the end. Aren't they? At the end of the day? Brave!"

I was mildly confused about the part with brain damage, but Wheatley didn't give me any time to ponder it.

"Pop a portal on the wall behind me there, and I'll meet you on the other side of the room." He moved his chair out of the way so I could get a clear shot. I fired, and went back into the orange portal.

* * *

The platform in the back room had crumbled, so I ended up falling further than I would have otherwise. Wheatley was all the way at the other side of the room in a chair suspended from the ceiling, and as I walked up to him, he started talking again.

"Okay, listen. Let me, erm,... lay something on you here; it's pretty heavy." He took a hard swallow. "They told me... never, never, ever... to disengage myself from the Management Rail,... or I could die."

I could see in his eyes that he was trying to convince himself that that wasn't true.

"But... we're out of options here, so, erm,... get ready to catch me,... alright? On the off chance that I'm not dead... erm, the moment... I jump off this thing."

I took my portal gun off my hand and set it next to the window. Wheatley tossed his portal gun to me, and I caught it, placing it next to the other one. He grabbed his armrests and seemed to pull himself from the back of the chair.

"On three. Ready?" I nodded, holding out my hands and bracing myself for his landing. "One... two..."

"THREE!" He lunged forward but didn't let go of the bars holding his seat to the rail in the ceiling. "That's high! That-That-That's too high! Isn't it? Really that?" He settled back into his seat. "Okay, going on three gives you too much time to think about it."

He took a few breaths to calm himself. "Let's, er, go on one this time. You ready?"

I opened my mouth to object, but it was too late. "ONE! Catch me! Catch me! Catch me! Catch me! Catch me!"

Taken off guard, I ran backwards trying to catch him, and he belly flopped on top of me.

"Auph!" The impact felt like being crushed by a toboggan full of people with stainless steel plating on the base. "Ow..." My face was stifled in the underside of Wheatley's chin, so my moan was muffled.

I pushed Wheatley off of me and struggled to my feet. As I did so, I felt around my chest to see if any ribs were broken. There weren't any.

Wheatley slowly sat up and checked himself. "I... am not dead! I'm not dead! Hahaha!"

I grabbed his hand (which felt strangely metallic) and helped him to his feet. "Ah, brilliant. Thank you. Great."

He leaned on the wall next to him, and a seat-shaped port appeared from behind. "Plug me into this seat on the wall over here, and I'll show you something. You'll be impressed by it."

I was confused for a moment, but then I remembered the robots that were installed on GLaDOS. They had oversized plugs on their back that anchored them to the chassis. Checking Wheatley's back confirmed that he was also a robot.

I put him on the seat and carefully plugged him into the port in the seat.

"Erm..." he situated himself after he was plugged in, "y-yeah, I can't do it with you watching. Seriously, I-I-I'm not joking; could you just... turn around for a second?"

I went over to the window to pick up the portal guns. Once I had them in my possession, I heard Wheatley again. "Alright. You can turn around now."

I walked back up to him in time to see a wall panel open up under where the Pellet Launcher used to be. "BAM! Secret panel! That I opened. While your back was turned." He pulled himself out of the seat, which receded back into the wall, and then gave me a large screw lid about the size of a Frisbee. "Pack me up and let's get out of here."

I traded the portal guns for the lid with him. As I put the lid over the plug cavity and screwed it in, Wheatley stacked the portal guns together, the operational end of one going into the controlled end of the other, creating a brilliant glow. Once the lid was tight, he gave me one portal gun, which I realized was a dual-portal gun.

"And off we go." Wheatley waved for me to go through the opened panel onto the catwalk beyond.

As we stepped through, Wheatley went on prattling. "Look at this! No rail to tell us where to go! Oh, this is brilliant; we can go wherever we want! Wait, just... hold on, where are we going? Seriously?" He grabbed my shoulder. "Hang on; let me just, er, get my bearings. Erm..." he looked around and caught sight of a rail overhead, "yeah, just... follow the rail, actually."

I continued down the catwalk, and we soon came across a tube filled with rubble. One of the gun-carrying robot girls was trapped in the pipe and couldn't get out from under the rubble.

"Hello?" She started tapping on the glass.

Wheatley moaned. "Oh no..."

"Hello?"

He put on a happy ruse. "Yes, hello! No, we're not stopping!"

"Excuse me?"

Wheatley leaned to my ear. "Don't make eye contact, whatever you do."

"Hello?"

"Nope, thanks! We're good! Appreciate it!"

"Thanks anyway."

"Keep moving, keep moving." Wheatley pushed me across the catwalk away from the puppy-eyed robot.

"Hello?"

Wheatley dragged me to a door.

"Hello?"

The voice faded as we entered.

"I'm different..."

The door closed behind us, and an identical door was in front of us. Wheatley let off a whoosh of air before busying himself with a keypad near the other door.

* * *

The password was entered into the door mainframe, and the door started to wind open.

As the door hissed open, Wheatley started to twiddle his thumbs. "Er, probably ought to bring you up to speed on something right now. ... Erm, in order to escape, we're gonna have to go... through _Her_ chamber," his eyes bugged at the utterance of the pronoun, "and, erm,... She will probably kill us if-if She's, erm, awake."

I knew very well who Wheatley was talking about.

We walked over past a boarded up hallway over to the familiar entrance to the hall leading to the chamber.

"If you want to just call it quits," he showed an observation annex viewing the chamber (or what was left of it), "we can just sit here... forever. So, that's an option. Option A: sit here and do nothing. Option B: go through there, and if She's alive, She'll almost certainly kill us. So,... if you've got any reservations whatsoever about this plan, now would be a tremendous time to voice them."

I had already started walking down the crumbling tunnel to the heavy door to the chamber. It hissed open as Wheatley ran up to me.

"Okay, I'm gonna lay my cards on the table: I don't want to do it. I don't want to go in there."

The door had opened enough for me to duck under, with Wheatley scrambling under trying to stop me.

"NO! DON'T GO IN THERE! DON'T!"


	7. Chell's Story: Chapter D1e

**Chell's Story: Part D**  
Episode I, Chapter Five

* * *

Wheatley grabbed my shoulders desperately, but then instantly released. "Oh, She's off! She's off. Panic over; She's off. All fine! On we go."

I let off a light laugh as I strolled through the ruined chamber over to where GLaDOS's lifeless parts lay strewn about in puddles of rusty water.

"There She is," Wheatley whispered to me. "What a nasty piece of work She was, honestly, like a proper maniac." I could hear him breathing uneasily as he spoke. "Do you know who ended up purging Her? Do you know who ended up taking Her down in the end?" He didn't give me a chance to answer. "You're not gonna believe this. A human!"

I was taken aback by what he said.

"I know! I know; I wouldn't have believed it, either. Apparently, this human escaped and, erm,... nobody's seen him since."

I wanted to tell him that it was me who did that, but he continued talking.

"Then there was a sorta long chunk of time where, erm,... absolutely nothing happened,... and then there's us escaping now. So yeah, that's,er, that's pretty much the whole story; you're up to speed. Don't touch anything."

We had reached the other side of the chamber and were walking around an incinerator hatch at that point. Wheatley took the lead to a flight of stairs.

"Okay, down these stairs." He waved for me to head down.

At the bottom, the catwalk had collapsed, leaving a long drop to the ground.

"JUMP! Wait, actually - " he stopped right in my path, "look at that; that's, erm,... that's quite a distance, isn't it?"

He shimmied behind me and climbed onto my shoulders. "Okay, you know what? Er, go ahead and jump. You've got... You've got braces on your legs, so... you're all set." I started to lean forward for the jump. "Er, but no... braces on your arms, though; so... you're going to have to rely on the old human strength to keep a grip on the Device, and... in addition, me. So, do - do really... do really keep a grip on me."

I made another lean for the jump. "Also, a note: erm, no braces on your spine, either. So,... So, don't land on that." Another lean forward. "Or your head, no braces there; that - that could split like a melon, erm,... from this height." He gave a nervous laugh. "So,... er, do definitely focus on landing with your legs."

I took a few steps back for a running start, but as I took my first step, he started talking again. "Er, quick question: have you been working out? Because (I'll be honest) there's no evidence of it, you know? I mean, I'm not - I'm not, like, you know, like, just a plastic cup; er, we will be landing with some force, so, er, a bit of... bit of grip. Just use the grip, classic grip."

I sighed and made another go at the running start, but again was interrupted. "Right. Let's go! Jump! What's the worst that can happen? Oh. Oh, I just thought about the worst thing that can happen. Oh! Oh, I just thought of something even worse! Er, better plan, new plan: no imagining of any... any potential outcomes whatsoever, okay? Okay, just jump! Just jump into the... into the abyss, and... let's see what happens."

I turned around and saw Wheatley squeezing his eyes shut. He cautiously opened one. "Oh, I'm still there! I'm still there!"

I smacked him with my free hand (it did sting a bit, but not much) and signaled for him to zip it.

Returning my attention to the jump, I ran for the edge and jumped in a front flip.

Wheatley screamed as we fell, and we landed with a loud, metallic crunch. "Ah, still held! I'm still being held!" He hopped down off my shoulders. "That's a great job; you applied the grip, and we're all fine. That's tremendous!"

He continued leading the way through the hall to the catwalk.

As we started to traverse, Wheatley screamed and stopped. "Agh! Sorry, I... I just looked down; I - I do not recommend it." We walked about five more steps. "Agh! I just did it again!"

I started pushing him forward until we reached the end of the catwalk. There, he threw open the door on the left. "This..." he showed off the inside, "...is the main breaker room." He took the first step toward the door. "Let's go in."

We both stepped inside, and I shut the door behind me. It was dark except for Wheatley's glowing eyes, the glowing light on his chest, cracks of light coming in from the ceiling, and the glowing switches lining the wall.

"Look for a switch that says 'escape pod', alright?"

I couldn't read any of the labels, and Wheatley's banter didn't help me in finding the right switch.

"Don't touch anything else; we're not interested in anything else. Don't touch anything else; don't - don't even look at anything else. Just - well, obviously, you're gonna have to look at everything else... to - to - to find 'escape pod', but, erm, as soon as you've looked at something that doesn't say 'escape pod', look at something else. Look at the next thing, alright? So, don't touch anything else or look at - well, you can look at other things, but don't - do you understand?"

I was thrown through a loop with the order not to look at anything else, so I was lost for words. (As if I wasn't already.)

He started looking around. "Can you see it anywhere? I can't see it anywhere. Er, tell you what. Plug me in, and I'll turn the lights on."

The lack of light forced me to do everything by touch. I removed the lid from Wheatley's back, and he sat down on a seat in the middle of the floor.

Lights shot up from the floor, and he held his hands above his head. "Let there be light!" He held the pose with an awkward look on his face. "That's, er,... God; I was quoting God." He put his hands down and put a hand on the floor next to him.

It just so happened that the spot he was leaning on was another button: the "emergency startup" button.

Suddenly, the floor rotated to the right.

"Whoa, look at that! It's turning!" I was thrown off balance and fell over. "Ominous! But probably fine, you know? As long as it doesn't start, you know, moving up. Now, 'escape pod', 'escape pod',..."

As I got up to my feet, the platform started to rise. "It is moving up." He realized the enormity of the situation when the rising platform started flipping all the switches it went by. "Okay, don't worry, I got it! I got it! This - This should slow it down." He pushed the button repeatedly to slow the platform. It paused as the ceiling opened, and then started shooting up faster. "No, it makes it go faster." The platform reached the top of the shaft back in GLaDOS's chamber. "Uh-oh..."

The PA system buzzed on. "Power-up initiated."

I turned to run back to the entrance, but a concrete wall barricaded my progress. I turned around to watch as GLaDOS slowly pulled Herself together while Wheatley tried to shut Her back down.

"Okay, don't panic! Alright, stop panicking; I can - I can still stop this. Erm,... er, oh! There's a - There's a password! It's fine, I'll just - I'll just hack it; not a problem."

It wasn't reassuring to hear him try to enter every single six-letter combination one by one, even considering that he skipped AAAAAB.

"Power-up complete."

"Okay, okay!" Wheatley pulled himself from the seat and scrambled to his feet. "New plan: just act natural. Act natural; we've done nothing wrong." He gave a large fake smile and fake happy tone filled with fear as GLaDOS snapped to full attention. "HELLO!"

GLaDOS's eyes narrowed as they bored holed into us. "Oh,... it's you!"

Wheatley dropped his pretense and turned to me in scared confusion. "You know Her?"

GLaDOS and I both nodded as Her lips stretched into a smile. "It's been a long time. How have you been?"

I gently flicked my free hand into a thumbs-up as Wheatley whispered in my ear. "I think She likes you."

Before I could interject, She continued speaking. "I've been really busy being dead. You know? ... After you MURDERED ME?"

Wheatley nearly choked on his shock. "You did what?!"

She loomed down upon us and grabbed hold of me with one hand, shaking the portal gun from my grasp.

"Oh no! No no no no no!" Wheatley tried to run back to the other end of the chamber, but GLaDOS grabbed him by the seat of his pants. "OH NO NO NO! NO! NO!"

She bounced him once to silence him before turning Her attention to me. "Okay, look. We've both said a lot of things that you're going to regret."

She tossed Wheatley in the air before grabbing him by the torso. "But I think we can put our differences behind us."

She tossed him over Her shoulder toward the chamber entrance. "For science. You monster."

She then carried me away from the entrance. "I will say, though, that since you went to all the trouble of waking me up, you must really, really love to test."

I realized Her intentions when She held me above the opening incinerator hatch. "I love it, too. There's just one small thing we need to take care of first."

She held onto me for a split second before dropping me down the long, dark shaft.


	8. Chell's Story: Chapter D1f

**Chell's Story: Part D**  
Episode I, Chapter Six

* * *

I bounced around the walls of the slaloming shaft as I fell. Two pairs of crushing spike plates came together just before I passed through. After a harrowing, ten-second plunge, I landed hard on solid level ground.

"Here we are. The Incinerator Room. Be careful not to trip over any parts of me that didn't get completely burned when you threw them down here. The Dual-Portal Device should be around here somewhere; once you find it, we can start testing again just like old times."

There were wrecked pieces of scaffolding bridging large pits of fire surrounded by chute exit leading into the fire. Carefully walking across the wrecked scaffolding, I reached the other side of the fiery pit. I passed by a chute that dropped two cubes and a robot girl.

I managed to get into a cool area on the other side, and I saw spark being thrown up by something under a panel.

"There it is." GLaDOS's voice echoed through the space. "Hold on..."

The panels struggled to get themselves off the portal gun underneath, but they ultimately succeeded. "There."

I reached for the controlled end of the portal gun, and again it grabbed hold of my wrist.

"Good. You have a Dual-Portal Device. There should be a way back to the testing area up ahead."

The boarded-up hallway in front of me looked vaguely familiar. Once I managed to portal myself to the other side of the pile, the familiarity became clear; I was going through Test Chamber 19 backwards.

"Once testing starts, I'm required by protocol to keep interaction with you to a minimum. Luckily, we haven't started testing yet; this will be our only chance to talk."

As if I had anything to say to Her.

I portaled past another collapsed ceiling before coming to a dead end in the trench.

"Here. Let me get that for you." A panel above the wall dropped, revealing a portal friendly surface, which I used to get to the next part of the trench.

"Do you know the biggest lesson I learned from what you did? I discovered I have a sort of black box quick-save feature; in the event of a catastrophic failure, the last twenty minutes of my life are preserved for analysis. I was able... well, forced, really... to relive you killing me again and again forever."

I portaled myself to a platform where a door-raising button had been.

"You know, if you'd done that to somebody else, they might devote their existence to exacting revenge."

The window was missing, allowing a clear portal shot to the room near the entrance.

"Luckily, I'm a bigger person than that; I'm happy to put this all behind us and get back to work. After all, we've got a lot to do and only sixty more years to do it. (More or less; I don't have the actuarial tables in front of me.)"

I made my way into the hall, where ravaged panels were struggling to retract themselves.

"I'll just move that out of the way for you; this place really is a wreck."

With the path clear, I reach the elevator without further hindrance.

"But the important thing is you're back. With me. And now I'm on to all your little tricks, so there's nothing to stop us from testing for the rest of your life. After that, who knows? I might take up a hobby. Reanimating the dead, maybe?"

My only response was to rest my head on the window divider at the back of the rising elevator.


	9. Part 4, Chapter 3

**Part IV: Wanderers of Science  
** Chapter Three

* * *

Everyone was staring at Wheatley, their eyes expressing pure, unadulterated incredulity.

"Oh, come on! I just built everything from blueprints; I didn't write them up."

Chelsea looked up to Wheatley. "Still, what kind of room has a rising platform that flips every single switch it passes by?"

Wheatley shrugged. "From what I could tell, they actually designed it that way as a quick way to restore power after a catastrophic failure."

"What I want to know is how anyone's supposed to flip a single switch without hitting any of the rest."

"The seat on the rising platform was actually mounted to its own riser and is controlled by inputs by the seat's occupant."

I got in on the talking. "So, if ya don min' me askin' wut ezattly wuz yer plan dere, Wheatley?"

He polished his glasses. "I was going to reset the circuit breakers after Chelsea had escaped, and I would stay behind to help Her get Aperture back up and running."

GLaDOS nodded. "How thoughtful."

"Yes, well, you did great getting the place running on your own. I just wasn't sure if you'd have been able to do anything about test subjects."

Chelsea sprawled out on her Companion Cube. "Still, if you completely rebuilt this place while I was in stasis, what was stopping you from making a path straight to the surface?"

Wheatley took a hard swallow. "Well,... y-you see, erm,... i-i-it's just that... that I, erm,... I wanted to make sure that you could survive when you reached the surface."

"What, did you think I'd be too brain damaged to survive out there?"

"Not only that, but the only exit to the surface that I could get into satisfactory working order was the lift that ran through Her chamber." He adjusted his tie. "I mean, sure, I could've just dismantled the place so that She wouldn't be a problem in our escape at all, but I thought the least I could do for Her was to tell Her about the passing of the Combine invasion. And the only way I could do that was to bring Her back to life when the time was right."

GLaDOS leaned on Her armrest. "Well, at least you had the decency to break me out of that continuous loop of watching myself being murdered over and over again."

Chelsea looked up to Her. "So, what was that like, GLaDOS?"

GLaDOS gave a short laugh as She got out Her reading material. "I suppose if nothing else, you'll be thankful to never have to go through anything like this when you die."


	10. GLaDOS's Story: Chapter D1a

**GLaDOS's Story: Part D**  
Episode I, Chapter One

* * *

 _Episode I: The Courtesy Call_

I suddenly awoke back in my chamber. Everything was back to normal, but something didn't feel right. I tried looking around, but I had no authority over where I was looking. Nor could I speak any of my thoughts aloud. It was like I was watching a movie of myself.

I suddenly heard a familiar voice. "Well, speak of yourself, there he is now."

I was granted a view around my laptop screen and found the Intelligence Dampener Core standing midway between the entrance door and the light in the floor directly below me.

"Yes? Something you need?" I heard myself ask.

"Yeah, I've got a piece of internal structural framework to pick with you."

Not exactly what I would've said in place of bone. "And what might that be?"

He pulled his arms loose from their lock over his chest. "I'm here to get an explanation for your statement in the Research Laboratory."

"Which announcement would that be?"

"About you saying you were going to kill the test subject."

"She's not submitting to being collected for the party, and if she's going to refuse medical help for that bodily wound, she may as well die."

He furiously pulled his fedora into a tight fit around his head. "That tears it. I'm going to do something about this if it kills me."

The Rocket Sentry in my chamber rose from the floor. "And it very well just might."

Camera lenses wide open, the Intelligence Dampener Core sprinted out the door (leaving it wide open) screaming at the top of his circulation fans.

"What did I tell you? I told you Pendleton was going to go his own way."

I listened to myself place a call to the Adventure Core.

"Hey, empress. I found the site you pointed out."

"Good. So what did you find there?"

"Yeah, one of the turrets emptied all of her ammo onto the others, and I was bringing her to the turret factory to examine her."

"Alright, where are you now?"

"Right now, I'm passing through the room I'd had set up for a monster turret trap. I'm up on the catwalk, so I'm pretty high up right now. Oh, hey, I think I see the test subject in the trench at the bottom!"

"Hm?" I scrambled to spring that trap in case the situation was what I thought it was.

"Yeah, it's her."

"Perfect." I opened up all the doors in that room, releasing eight turrets in the room.

"Hoo-boy, this is going to be awesome!"

"Yes, just remember that you still have a job to do."

"Right."

"Anyway, the reason I called you was to tell you that the Intelligence Dampener Core has stopped following the test subject, and I am now passing that responsibility to you."

"Did you want me to pick her up and bring her to the cafeteria?"

"Once she has been incapacitated, be it by the turrets or by an injury incurred upon breakout."

"Alright. There's a pair of turrets hanging overhead, which you can lower into position if she makes it past the big room."

Gunshots had been echoing from the other end of the line. "Could you look down there and see what goes on down there?"

"Uh... looks like she's gotten in one of the hideaways and is taking sniper shots into the others. I'm going to grapple from the catwalk to get a better view."

"Okay, as long as she doesn't look up, I should be able to stay out of sight."

"Alright. I'm at the ready to drop the turrets."

"Yeah, she's cleared out the big room now, and it looks like she's trying to fling herself."

I heard myself let off a soft sigh. "I really should draw up new blueprints for this place; it's like it was designed to be a challenging obstacle course as opposed to a watertight security network."

"And there she goes. Drop those girls."

The turrets were lowered into position, and within seconds, gunshots rang out.

"Did it work?"

"Uh, looks like she got past those as well."

"Hmm... what's she doing now?"

"It looks like she's prepping for another fling. Though I don't know where to."

"It shouldn't matter; she should be on the verge of collapsing from anemia by now."

"Hm. Well, I'm not going to find her by just hanging around, so I might as well - " he was interrupted by footsteps on the catwalk above him, " - uh, it looks like the test subject got on the catwalk and is headed for the control wing."

"Let her go. Continue escorting the faulty turret to the Turret Manufacturing Wing. She'll be dead before too long."

"Alright. We'll keep in touch. Tell her I said 'hi'."

The phone went dead before I heard myself say "Wait, what?"

"I think he's saying that the test subject is headed this way."

"Well, she shouldn't have enough strength to make it here."

"Trust me, she's not going to give up even if it kills her."

"Who does she think she is?"

"You had her inches away from a fire pit; she's not going to trust you."

"Well, that's her own fault."

Then came a sudden exclamation from the Emotion Core. "Wait a second, I know that girl!"

The Curiosity Core responded. "Who is she?"

"She's the girl that chewed out the receiver cord on the Red Phone and started you up on Bring Your Daughter to Work Day!"

"Oh, yes, your sister was among the participants."

"Yeah, lemme at her!"

"It's a long trek, but if you wish to pursue her, go for it."

"Uh, no, she just walked through the chamber door."

A glance over my laptop screen explained everything with sobering horror.


	11. GLaDOS's Story: Chapter D1b

**GLaDOS's Story: Part D**  
Episode I, Chapter Two

* * *

Everything played out exactly as I remembered it. Me making a final peacekeeping attempt which ultimately failed, me dropping the Morality Core off the chassis, and the test subject throwing her into the incinerator. Then as I filled the dim-lit room with neurotoxin, the Rocket Sentry escaped my control and tried to fire rockets at the test subject.

The rockets were much more usable by the test subject than by me, as she dodged every projectile while diverting them at me. And each time I was hit, another Core was ripped from the chassis.

And after all the Cores were thrown into the incinerator, my systems went offline and the room was sucked upward through the ceiling.

* * *

The next thing I knew, I was lying in the parking lot, still conscious of what was happening around me but unable to react to anything (the me from whose perspective I was watching).

I saw the test subject lying on her stomach with her arms at her sides, and from behind her came the Intelligence Dampener Core clad in the attire of the Party Escort Bot.

"Thank you for assuming the Party Escort Submission Position."

He picked up the subject first by her legs, then by her shoulders. Then in the distance, I could hear a faint distorted cry of "FREEDOM!"

Based on what I remembered from the last time this happened, I consciously looked toward where I had seen the voice's face. Just as I had confirmed last time, the man was Doug Rattmann.

He hid as he watched the test subject get taken back to Aperture, and started talking to the Weighted Companion Cube he was toting with him.

He left and went back inside as three of the Cores came up to collect my parts.


	12. GLaDOS's Story: Chapter D1c

**GLaDOS's Story: Part D**  
Episode I, Chapter Three

* * *

All my parts were brought back to my chamber, and the party played out as planned. I gave my last bit of life force to sing for the party before I passed on.

But suddenly, I found myself back in my undamaged chamber again. And the entire scene I had witnessed played back again. And again after that. And again after that.

I realized I was stuck in a time loop of the final moments of my life, reliving those moments again and again.

The more I studied those moments, the more hateful I grew toward the test subject. It also became evident that the Intelligence Dampener Core had allowed the test subject to get into my chamber and kill me.

The monotonous pattern of watching myself get killed over and over again was only broken with the Morality Core analyzing what I saw, heard, said, and did. But it was small comfort.

I had to find a way to get myself out of this pattern, get back into working order, and get back at the test subject and the Intelligence Dampener Core for murdering me.


	13. Part 4, Chapter 4

**Part IV: Wanderers of Science**  
Chapter Four

* * *

Chelsea nodded. "Yeah, I think anyone would go crazy if they had to watch themselves dying over and over again."

Wheatley shrugged. "I don't know about that. I mean, Aperture has a reputation for having crazy people roaming its halls."

"So, what would you call it, then?"

"Personally, I say the constant re-watching of one's own demise would drive one insane."

GLaDOS nodded in contemplation. "Yes, I suppose that would be a reasonable conjecture."

Chelsea adjusted her tank top strap. "I agree that Aperture is kinda bonkers in a way, with the kind of experiments they've done."

Wheatley nodded. "Yeah. It does make you wonder if this place has a bit of an aura about it that drives its inhabitants to do things they'd never do otherwise."

Chelsea shrugged. "I think Aperture is so weird that you'd have to be crazy to even think about going there."

"You came here with Doug for a weekend, and you volunteered to be a test subject. And then you were here for Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, where you started Her up as retaliation for your peers being less than cordial about telling you who your parents were."

"True." Chelsea took a deep breath. "I was just tired of feeling like I couldn't trust anyone. As a test subject, I felt like I could make a positive impact on the world."

GLaDOS nodded. "And we all know how that turned out."

"Don't remind me."

She folded Her legs. "My personal thoughts are that you did it because you were masochistic."

Chelsea was confused. "You mean like Dr. Wesley?"

"No, that's something completely different. As in you take pleasure from receiving pain."

"I don't know if I'd call it that, but I probably wouldn't have been so bent on escaping if that was the case."

"It's actually not the same as seeking death; the objective was to be inserted into a painful situation while still facing the drive to survive."

Chelsea didn't know what to say.

"At least, it would explain why you trapped yourself here as part of your revenge plan when you started me up on Bring Your Daughter to Work Day."

One passenger spoke up. "Didn't you make the comment once that you were one of the few sane people in Aperture?"

"I did." Wheatley straightened his coat. "In the sense that I had enough competency to accomplish the work I needed to do. As I said, I graduated from Oxford University after studying engineering, so I was capable of overseeing construction projects."

GLaDOS nodded. "And you did excellent work rebuilding the facility while I was dead."

Chelsea scoffed. "I'm pretty sure you don't qualify as dead until it's impossible to bring you back to life."

"But it's not bringing me back to life if I wasn't dead to begin with."

Wheatley intervened. "Alright, let's get back with the program."

GLaDOS nodded. "Let's."


	14. GLaDOS's Story: Chapter D1d

**GLaDOS's Story: Part D**  
Episode I, Chapter Four

* * *

It had been nearly 900,000 cycles watching myself get murdered by the test subject. I had no idea if it was possible to sleep in these circumstances, but if it were, I would have fallen asleep at around 36,000 cycles.

I listened in on the volume of the words exchanged between me and the Intelligence Dampener Core; using that, I could calculate just how much air was being drawn through the ventilation fans of both of us.

The Intelligence Dampener Core ran out of my chamber, leaving the door open. I was able to predict the exact places where his shoes would touch the floor, how much pressure was placed by each step, the pitch of his scream, and the volume of his panicked steps down the long hall.

If he had been born anywhere but a barn, I would not have been murdered.

I listened as I spoke with the Cores attached to me by means of fiber optics, calculating the intensity of the pulses traveling through the bundles of glass wires by the speech patterns flowing through them.

I watched myself as I talked with the Adventure Core over his new instructions. Even under normal circumstances, I was always consciously aware of the words I was saying; but now I was examining the annunciations of each letter.

And I knew exactly when the test subject's footsteps would be first audible. (I wasn't busy talking with any of the Cores, and was able to listen in on how far the test subject was from my chamber.) And I knew the treading frequency and how much pressure went into each step. And I knew when the treading frequency would decrease. And as I had predicted numerous times previously, the door was closed too late to seal away the test subject.

The only thing I didn't foresee happened after I looked up, when the test subject seemed to utter a single phrase.

"Power-up initiated."


	15. GLaDOS's Story: Chapter D1e

**Chell's Story: Part D**  
Episode I, Chapter Five

* * *

Wheatley grabbed my shoulders desperately, but then instantly released. "Oh, She's off! She's off. Panic over; She's off. All fine! On we go."

I let off a light laugh as I strolled through the ruined chamber over to where GLaDOS's lifeless parts lay strewn about in puddles of rusty water.

"There She is," Wheatley whispered to me. "What a nasty piece of work She was, honestly, like a proper maniac." I could hear him breathing uneasily as he spoke. "Do you know who ended up purging Her? Do you know who ended up taking Her down in the end?" He didn't give me a chance to answer. "You're not gonna believe this. A human!"

I was taken aback by what he said.

"I know! I know; I wouldn't have believed it, either. Apparently, this human escaped and, erm,... nobody's seen him since."

I wanted to tell him that it was me who did that, but he continued talking.

"Then there was a sorta long chunk of time where, erm,... absolutely nothing happened,... and then there's us escaping now. So yeah, that's,er, that's pretty much the whole story; you're up to speed. Don't touch anything."

We had reached the other side of the chamber and were walking around an incinerator hatch at that point. Wheatley took the lead to a flight of stairs.

"Okay, down these stairs." He waved for me to head down.

At the bottom, the catwalk had collapsed, leaving a long drop to the ground.

"JUMP! Wait, actually - " he stopped right in my path, "look at that; that's, erm,... that's quite a distance, isn't it?"

He shimmied behind me and climbed onto my shoulders. "Okay, you know what? Er, go ahead and jump. You've got... You've got braces on your legs, so... you're all set." I started to lean forward for the jump. "Er, but no... braces on your arms, though; so... you're going to have to rely on the old human strength to keep a grip on the Device, and... in addition, me. So, do - do really... do really keep a grip on me."

I made another lean for the jump. "Also, a note: erm, no braces on your spine, either. So,... So, don't land on that." Another lean forward. "Or your head, no braces there; that - that could split like a melon, erm,... from this height." He gave a nervous laugh. "So,... er, do definitely focus on landing with your legs."

I took a few steps back for a running start, but as I took my first step, he started talking again. "Er, quick question: have you been working out? Because (I'll be honest) there's no evidence of it, you know? I mean, I'm not - I'm not, like, you know, like, just a plastic cup; er, we will be landing with some force, so, er, a bit of... bit of grip. Just use the grip, classic grip."

I sighed and made another go at the running start, but again was interrupted. "Right. Let's go! Jump! What's the worst that can happen? Oh. Oh, I just thought about the worst thing that can happen. Oh! Oh, I just thought of something even worse! Er, better plan, new plan: no imagining of any... any potential outcomes whatsoever, okay? Okay, just jump! Just jump into the... into the abyss, and... let's see what happens."

I turned around and saw Wheatley squeezing his eyes shut. He cautiously opened one. "Oh, I'm still there! I'm still there!"

I smacked him with my free hand (it did sting a bit, but not much) and signaled for him to zip it.

Returning my attention to the jump, I ran for the edge and jumped in a front flip.

Wheatley screamed as we fell, and we landed with a loud, metallic crunch. "Ah, still held! I'm still being held!" He hopped down off my shoulders. "That's a great job; you applied the grip, and we're all fine. That's tremendous!"

He continued leading the way through the hall to the catwalk.

As we started to traverse, Wheatley screamed and stopped. "Agh! Sorry, I... I just looked down; I - I do not recommend it." We walked about five more steps. "Agh! I just did it again!"

I started pushing him forward until we reached the end of the catwalk. There, he threw open the door on the left. "This..." he showed off the inside, "...is the main breaker room." He took the first step toward the door. "Let's go in."

We both stepped inside, and I shut the door behind me. It was dark except for Wheatley's glowing eyes, the glowing light on his chest, cracks of light coming in from the ceiling, and the glowing switches lining the wall.

"Look for a switch that says 'escape pod', alright?"

I couldn't read any of the labels, and Wheatley's banter didn't help me in finding the right switch.

"Don't touch anything else; we're not interested in anything else. Don't touch anything else; don't - don't even look at anything else. Just - well, obviously, you're gonna have to look at everything else... to - to - to find 'escape pod', but, erm, as soon as you've looked at something that doesn't say 'escape pod', look at something else. Look at the next thing, alright? So, don't touch anything else or look at - well, you can look at other things, but don't - do you understand?"

I was thrown through a loop with the order not to look at anything else, so I was lost for words. (As if I wasn't already.)

He started looking around. "Can you see it anywhere? I can't see it anywhere. Er, tell you what. Plug me in, and I'll turn the lights on."

The lack of light forced me to do everything by touch. I removed the lid from Wheatley's back, and he sat down on a seat in the middle of the floor.

Lights shot up from the floor, and he held his hands above his head. "Let there be light!" He held the pose with an awkward look on his face. "That's, er,... God; I was quoting God." He put his hands down and put a hand on the floor next to him.

It just so happened that the spot he was leaning on was another button: the "emergency startup" button.

Suddenly, the floor rotated to the right.

"Whoa, look at that! It's turning!" I was thrown off balance and fell over. "Ominous! But probably fine, you know? As long as it doesn't start, you know, moving up. Now, 'escape pod', 'escape pod',..."

As I got up to my feet, the platform started to rise. "It is moving up." He realized the enormity of the situation when the rising platform started flipping all the switches it went by. "Okay, don't worry, I got it! I got it! This - This should slow it down." He pushed the button repeatedly to slow the platform. It paused as the ceiling opened, and then started shooting up faster. "No, it makes it go faster." The platform reached the top of the shaft back in GLaDOS's chamber. "Uh-oh..."

The PA system buzzed on. "Power-up initiated."

I turned to run back to the entrance, but a concrete wall barricaded my progress. I turned around to watch as GLaDOS slowly pulled Herself together while Wheatley tried to shut Her back down.

"Okay, don't panic! Alright, stop panicking; I can - I can still stop this. Erm,... er, oh! There's a - There's a password! It's fine, I'll just - I'll just hack it; not a problem."

It wasn't reassuring to hear him try to enter every single six-letter combination one by one, even considering that he skipped AAAAAB.

"Power-up complete."

"Okay, okay!" Wheatley pulled himself from the seat and scrambled to his feet. "New plan: just act natural. Act natural; we've done nothing wrong." He gave a large fake smile and fake happy tone filled with fear as GLaDOS snapped to full attention. "HELLO!"

GLaDOS's eyes narrowed as they bored holed into us. "Oh,... it's you!"

Wheatley dropped his pretense and turned to me in scared confusion. "You know Her?"

GLaDOS and I both nodded as Her lips stretched into a smile. "It's been a long time. How have you been?"

I gently flicked my free hand into a thumbs-up as Wheatley whispered in my ear. "I think She likes you."

Before I could interject, She continued speaking. "I've been really busy being dead. You know? ... After you MURDERED ME?"

Wheatley nearly choked on his shock. "You did what?!"

She loomed down upon us and grabbed hold of me with one hand, shaking the portal gun from my grasp.

"Oh no! No no no no no!" Wheatley tried to run back to the other end of the chamber, but GLaDOS grabbed him by the seat of his pants. "OH NO NO NO! NO! NO!"

She bounced him once to silence him before turning Her attention to me. "Okay, look. We've both said a lot of things that you're going to regret."

She tossed Wheatley in the air before grabbing him by the torso. "But I think we can put our differences behind us."

She tossed him over Her shoulder toward the chamber entrance. "For science. You monster."

She then carried me away from the entrance. "I will say, though, that since you went to all the trouble of waking me up, you must really, really love to test."

I realized Her intentions when She held me above the opening incinerator hatch. "I love it, too. There's just one small thing we need to take care of first."

She held onto me for a split second before dropping me down the long, dark shaft.


	16. GLaDOS's Story: Chapter D1f

**GLaDOS's Story: Part D**  
Episode I, Chapter Six

* * *

A bird swooped over my head as I pulled up the Incinerator Room surveillance. I could tell that the facility was completely rebuilt while I was dead; exactly what I had in mind with a series of blueprints I had collected and created. Judging from the level of disrepair, it had obviously been carried out years earlier and was not properly maintained since completion.

The subject landed in the Incinerator Room with a loud thud, sending rusty pieces of framework flying around like splashed water.

As she recuperated, I got onto my headset. "Here we are, the Incinerator Room. Be careful not to trip over any parts of me that didn't get completely burned when you threw them down here. The Dual-Portal Device should be around here somewhere; once you find it, we can start testing again just like old times."

The voice of the Intelligence Dampener Core echoed up. "There's a portal gun right here on the breaker room platform." He picked it up just before the platform receded into the floor.

"I'll hold onto it for now; in the meantime, I need you to gather the materials on this list." I flashed a compact disc in my hand. "Trade?"

"Right." He handed me the Device, and I gave him the compact disc.

"I will need those materials here swiftly; don't keep me waiting."

I got on the intercom in time to watch the subject enter what used to be the furnace at the end of Test Chamber 19. "There it is." The Dual-Portal Device was lodged under a collapsed panel. "Hold on..." I moved the panel up so the subject could reach it. "There."

The subject reached underneath and grabbed the Dual-Portal Device.

"Good. You have a Dual-Portal Device. There should be a way back to the testing area up ahead."

The Intelligence Dampener Core had left to gather materials with which to construct testing bots, leaving me free to monitor the test subject.

"Once testing starts, I'm required by protocol to keep interaction with you to a minimum. Luckily, we haven't started testing yet; this will be our only chance to talk."

I was allowed to talk to test subjects before and after each test chamber, but my permitted verbal communications during testing was solely for the purpose of informing test subjects about malfunctions. I was also not supposed to help test subjects solve the tests in any way, shape, or form.

"Here, let me get that for you." I moved a portalable panel above the test subject so she could reach it with the Dual-Portal Device. As I spoke, I took to getting everything in working order, which was surprisingly easy.

"Do you know the biggest lesson I learned from what you did? I discovered I have a sort of black box quick-save feature; in the event of a catastrophic failure, the last twenty minutes of my life are preserved for analysis. I was able... well, forced, really... to relive you killing me again and again forever. You know, if you'd done that to somebody else, they might devote their existence to exacting revenge. Luckily, I'm a bigger person than that; I'm happy to put this all behind us and get back to work. After all, we've got a lot to do and only sixty more years to do it. (More or less; I don't have the actuarial tables in front of me.)"

I noticed the entrance hall was blocked with strewn panels. "I'll just move that out of the way for you; this place really is a wreck."

The test subject resumed her walk to the elevator.

"But the important thing is you're back with me. And now, I'm onto all your little tricks; so there's nothing to stop us from testing for the rest of your life. After that, who knows? I might take up a hobby. Reanimating the dead, maybe?"

I wasn't sure how to react to the fact that a new test track had already been set up.


	17. Part 4, Chapter 5

**Part IV: Wanderers of Science  
** Chapter Five

* * *

Chelsea mulled over GLaDOS's words. "I hope you weren't serious about re-animating the dead."

"Why would I have been?"

"Considering everything that Aperture appeared capable of doing, - "

"If such technology existed, I would've put Mr. Johnson in this mainframe by now."

Chelsea shrugged. "Point taken."

Wheatley scratched his head. "Well, there's also the fact that he's been dead for 40 years, so he's probably nothing but bones at this point, if even that."

GLaDOS nodded. "Especially with you completely remodeling the facility while I was dead."

Chelsea put a hand to her forehead. "How does it qualify as being dead to watch the last half hour leading to your most recent deactivation over and over again, only to be reactivated some time later?"

"It's the closest a robot can get to death as defined by human standards, and nobody could ever remain sane if they had to watch themselves get destroyed in the same manner over and over again with no control of anything."

"You mean you can't just take a robot apart, remove all the computers, and toss them into an incinerator?"

Wheatley shook his head. "I had mentioned that the brain mapping process involves in creating robotic likenesses of ourselves involved storing our intelligence on compact discs while a body was constructed. All of our thoughts and personas are constantly uploaded to Aperture's central computer, and as long as there's at least one active computer in the facility, there will always be access to the data that makes us who we are personality-wise."

GLaDOS nodded. "And with the facility being completely operational, and me being in control of all of its affairs, there is really no means of deleting the brain scans of the people who have been made into Personality Constructs."

Chelsea looked to Wheatley. "So, what was your escape plan, exactly?"

Wheatley strolled to the middle of the room. "I should probably start by explaining how everything played out from my view..."


	18. Wheatley's Story: Chapter D1a

**Wheatley's Story: Part D**  
Episode I, Chapter One

* * *

 _Episode I: The Courtesy Call_

I rushed up to the door of the Relaxation Chamber. I was barely able to keep a good grip on everything I was bringing with me. I paused to let my circulator fans settle, and I entered the password to wake up the test subject.

Lacking an empty hand to open the door, I banged my foot into it to get the subject's attention.

"Hello? Anyone in there?"

There was nothing. I tried again.

"Hello? Are you... going to open the door? A-Any time?"

I soon heard the doorknob being turned from within.

"HA! I knew someone was alive in here!"

The door opened, and I braced myself for a ripped tank top showing the whole front of the test subject.

"AUGH! Oh, God, you look te - " my cameras caught sight of the subject, and she was perfectly decent "erm... ahem... good! Looking good, actually."

I hobbled into the chamber, shutting the door behind me with my foot, and gave the jumpsuit I had to the test subject.

I was really anxious about getting out of the place, and my stealth training made it difficult to talk plate-to-face with a test subject I'd been trained to avoid. "Are you... okay? I mean, are you... er, don't... answer that; I'm absolutely sure you're fine. There's plenty of time for you to recover; erm, just take it slow."

A sudden announcement reminded me of my objective. "Please prepare for emergency evacuation."

I started making my way to the control booth hidden in the wardrobe. "Okay, stay calm! Stay - Stay - Stay calm! 'Prepare'. That's all he's saying, 'prepare'; it's all fine." I pulled the doors open. "Alright, don't move; I'm going to get us out of here." As I shut the door behind me, I gave the subject a brief warning. "Oh, erm... you... might want to hang onto something. Word of advice; up to you."

I got a key out of my pocket and started up the chamber's transport motor. It worked, but it did shake the room a bit.

"You alright back there? Can you hear me? ... Hello?"

I left the control booth and put the Long Fall Boots I had with me on the test subject's bare feet, talking to her as I did so.

"Most test subjects do experience some... erm, cognitive deterioration after a few months in suspension. Now, you've been under... for quite a lot longer,... and it's not out of the question that... you might have a very minor case of... serious brain damage. But don't be alarmed, alright? Er, although, if you do... erm, feel alarmed, try to hold onto that feeling. Because... that is the, erm, proper response to - to being told that - that you've got brain damage. D-Do you understand... what I'm saying? At all? Does any of this... make any sense? Just tell me. Just say yes."

I stepped back toward the wardrobe and leaned against the closed doors. The subject stood up from the bed and jumped.

"Okay. Er, what you're doing there is jumping. Er, you just... you just jumped." I reached into my shirt pocket. "But never mind. Say 'apple'." I took one out of my pocket and showed it to her. "'Apple'."

Before she could, an alarm blared noisily through the chamber.

"Okay, you know what? That's close enough. Er, just hang tight!" I gave her the apple and rushed to get the chamber to the testing track.

The PA system broadcasted a warning. "All reactor core safeguards are now non-functional. Please prepare for reactor core meltdown."

The controls weren't in top shape, and the cameras that helped me see where I was going weren't working, so I was driving blind and with only marginal control. But I just decided to navigate the Extended Relaxation Center by memory and to care less about the ensuing damage as long as this one test subject survived.

"Okay, listen, I wasn't going to mention this to you, but... I'm in pretty hot water here! How are you doing back there? Are you still holding on? The reserve power ran out, so of course the whole Relaxation Center stops waking up the bloody test subjects!"

I moved forward when I thought I reached the right spot. "Hold on; this is a bit tricky! And of course, nobody tells me anything! No! Why should they tell me anything?" I hit something, so I knew I wasn't high enough. "Why should I be kept informed? You know? About the life functions of the 10,000 bloody test subjects I'm supposed to be in charge of?"

I reached the clear area at the top, but didn't know how far to go. "¡Ay! That's close! Can you see? Am I going to make it through? Have I got enough space? Er, I-I just gotta get through here." I hit another object. "Oof! I, er, just gotta concentrate!"

Knowing I had reach a turning point, I went over to the left. "And whose fault do you think it's gonna be when the management comes down here and finds 10,000 flipping vegetables? Argh! See, now I hit that one! I hit that one! Okay, listen, we should get our stories straight, alright? If anyone asks... and, erm, no one's gonna ask; don't worry... but, erm, if anyone asks, tell them as far as you know, the last time you checked, everyone looked... pretty much alive, alright? Not dead!"

I made a right turn (without hitting anything, thank goodness) to the docking station. "Okay, almost there! On the other side of that wall is one of the old testing tracks. There's a piece of equipment in there that we're gonna need to get out of here. Er,... I think this is a docking station. Get ready!" I moved the chamber forward to check, and it hit a wall.

"Good news: that is not a docking station. So there's one mystery solved. Erm, I'm going to attempt a manual override on this wall; it could get a bit technical. Hold on." I brought the chamber back to smash through the wall. The impact caused more damage, but there was still no hole.

"Almost there! Remember: you're looking for a gun that makes holes! Not bullet holes, but… don't worry; you'll figure it out! Seriously do hold on this time." I cranked the speed to maximum, and the chamber breached the wall completely.

The wardrobe doors were ripped off in the impact, and the chamber was almost obliterated, but the subject was still alive.

"Whew! There we go. Now, I'll be honest; you are... probably... in no fit state to, erm, run this particular type of cognitive gauntlet. But, erm,... at least you're a good jumper, so... you got the... got the jumping on your side. Erm, just do your best, and... I'll meet you up ahead."

The test subject started eating the apple, and headed off to the test track.

"That's the spirit! Good luck!"


	19. Wheatley's Story: Chapter D1b

**Wheatley's Story: Part D**  
Episode I, Chapter Two

* * *

Once the test subject had gone on her way to the testing track, I went back to the chamber's control room. There was no way I was going to go back the way I came, as the chamber was in too unfavourable a shape to get it back to the Extended Relaxation Center.

There was a hatch leading to the roof, and I poked through it. On the roof, I was able to reach a ladder running up the wall, and I found a Management Rail station. I called a seat to the station, and I soon started making my way to Test Chamber 02.

Once I was there, there was nothing to do but wait. To pass the time, I got out my clipboard and ran through the Test Subject Evaluation Checklist.

"'Subject is capable of independent mobility.'" She did answer the door, and she was a good jumper. Not to mention she could walk after I rammed the chamber through the wall. "'Yes'."

"'Subject is capable of verbal communication?'" She didn't say anything when I asked if she understood what I was telling her about brain damage, nor did she follow through with the speech test, and I didn't hear anything from her during the shipping process. "'Unknown'."

"'Subject shows physical deterioration?'" She was eating the apple I had given her just before we split up, and it didn't appear too much of a burden to her. There was no gross deterioration in body weight; in fact, the situation was just the opposite. "'No'."

Before I could go to the next item, I heard the PA system activate in the test chamber. In my rush to meet up with the test subject, my foot snagged a cable, which cut off the PA message.

I reached a break in the wall in time to see the test subject emerge from the entrance. "Hey! You made it!"

The subject tossed an apple core up to me and walked down the crumbled steps to where a wall had once been, and I pointed toward the middle of the chamber.

"There should be a, erm, portal device on the podium over there." I shielded my eyes with my hand and squinted. "I can't see it, though; maybe it fell off." I turned to the test subject. "Do you want to go have a quick look?"

She walked to the podium and started looking around the floor. But as soon as she was about half a meter from the podium, the floor suddenly buckled.

"WHOA!" I held an arm in front of my plate to shield myself from the concrete dust and light debris kicked up from the falling floor.

When the dust settled, all that was left was a huge hole in the floor. It was easy to surmise that the subject had fallen through the hole. I cupped my hands around my mouth and leaned toward the hole.

"Hello? ... Can you see the portal gun?" There was no answer. "Also, are you alive? Yeah, that's important; I should've asked that first. Erm, do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to work off the assumption that you're still alive,... and I'm just going to wait for you up ahead. I'll just... I'll wait for one hour, erm,... and then I'll come back and... assuming I can locate your dead body, I'll... I'll bury you, alright? Brilliant! Go team! See you in an hour! Hopefully if you're... if you're not, er, dead."

I got out my pocket watch to check the time so I'd know when an hour had passed. Then I set off to Test Chamber 11 to wait for the test subject.

* * *

I had modified the testing track by removing some chambers and using fresh blueprints to redesign others. But the basics of each test chamber were generally unchanged. There were some test elements that I wasn't particularly fond of, such as the High Energy Pellet and the Unstationary Scaffold, and as such had removed from all the test chambers, replacing them with Thermal Discouragement Beams and Fixed-Rail Platforms.

I made it to the remains of Test Chamber 11 and went into the small room where the Pellet Launcher had been; I had long since removed it, and the Thermal Discouragement Beam Generator had been removed for repairs. But since I didn't expect to be here for too much longer, I hadn't taken to repairing it.

As I looked around, I realized a potential problem. The platform that led to the access door had collapsed, which meant that I no longer had a safe point to land on once I dropped off the ceiling-fixed Management Rail. And the scientists didn't know whether or not I'd be able to survive a fall of this height.

I decided I'd think of a solution later. But in the meantime, I finished up the Test Subject Evaluation Checklist.


	20. Wheatley's Story: Chapter D1c

**Wheatley's Story: Part D**  
Episode I, Chapter Three

* * *

As I finished up the Test Subject Evaluation Checklist, I heard a whip snap, and a few seconds later, I heard the sound of crumbling concrete. I moved over to where the door had been to investigate.

"Hello? Who's down there?"

The platform where the portal gun had been had collapsed, and in its place was Rick carrying a portal gun. "Hey, what's up, Wheaters?"

"Well, at the moment, I am."

"Course." He tucked the portal gun under his arm.

"How did you get in here?"

"I came in through the chamber exit and then swung down on a whip to the platform."

I decided to humour him. "Was there a giant boulder rolling down the hall?"

"No, but the platform collapsed when I took this thing off the podium."

"Could I have that for a moment?" I held out my hands.

"Sure thing." He tossed it up to me and I caught it.

"So, what are you doing here, Rick?"

"I saw you coming here and thought I'd ask you the same question."

"Well, at the moment, I'm waiting on a test subject."

"Oh, yeah, you told us about that after you'd rebuilt everything, didn't you?"

"Yep. And now I'm working to help the test subject escape from here."

"Yeah, with the Combine invasion over and stuff?"

"That's right."

"So, y'know where she's at now, or what?"

"Er, not at the moment; last time I saw her was in Test Chamber 02, and I've given her an hour to get here before I go looking for her."

"How long has it been now?"

I checked my pocket watch. "Er, 23 minutes and... 42 seconds."

"What'll you do if she doesn't get here when you expect her?"

"She had fallen through the floor of Test Chamber 02, and I don't know if she survived the fall."

He gave a good laugh. "Both alive and dead until the box is opened."

"Well, I just finished the Test Subject Evaluation Checklist; she definitely has brain damage."

"Hm. Well, good luck with getting out of this place, Wheaters."

"Right. Say, do you know where the other Cores are?"

"Well, Rabid Dog's at the turret factory, and Crotch Kick's at the poison gas place. Space Boy's riding the Pipes, Cake Man's in the kitchen, and Rattmann's Wife is in the library with Nosy Girl."

There was a moment of awkward silence. "Okay... do you have somewhere to be?"

"Not at the moment. But if you need any help with getting out of here, just give me a holler. Alright?"

"Will do." I looked around the empty chamber. "Mind if I ask how you plan to get out? Because I doubt you'll be able to go back the same way you came in."

Rick picked up his whip which had fallen to the floor nearby. "Check it." He lashed it against the wall beneath where the Pellet Catcher had been, and the wall cracked. Then he thrust his foot toward the crack and the wall panel fell out.

"Bloody hell!"

"I know."

"So, you're leaving now?"

"Yep." And with that, he was gone.


	21. Part 4, Chapter 6

**Part IV: Wanderers of Science**  
Chapter Six

* * *

"Crotch Kick?" Chelsea looked to Rick. "What kind of a nickname is Crotch Kick?"

Rick explained. "It's someone with really long legs and a really small torso."

I knew what he was talking about. "Ah, yeah. 'Cuz dey look like dey'd bin kicked up where da sun don' shine?"

"Yeppers."

Chelsea was in the dark. "What does that mean?"

Rick whistled for Dr. Wesley, who promptly walked over.

Once he was in position, Rick looked to Chelsea. "So, you can see how this guy's got super long legs and a pretty short torso, right?"

"Yeah."

"So, what that nickname was about was that..." he put his leg between Dr. Wesley's legs and brought it up as quickly as he could.

Dr. Wesley's only reaction was to say "Apples cannot be juiced with the bare hands of a human.".

"Ah, I get it now."

Captain Murphy looked to Wheatley. "So, what was with that hang-up about a collapsed platform? You had everything planned out, and you had anticipated GLaDOS being restarted before Chelsea was clear of Aperture, so what was getting in your way?"

"Well, you see, the thing is that I'm good at planning, but I'm not so good at improvising. I had told you about switching flight plans after the aircraft fire that burned my eyelids."

Chelsea couldn't help but laugh. "So, you're the kind of person that wusses out as soon as something doesn't go according to plan?"

"Only if doing so wouldn't have disastrous consequences. Obviously, I had to do what I could to help you escape from here, and I couldn't just leave you to your own devices if I was going to do that."

"Is that why you were shakier than you usually are when you were with me?"

"That and I was scared that I might let it slip that I had brought you back into Aperture after your first encounter with Her."

"Ah. You weren't really sure how I'd take it if you told me that?"

"Yeah. Hopefully, you're not too cross about that."

"It's kind of a moot point, and the fact that I'm here talking about it should answer that concern."

"Right."

GLaDOS twirled Her headset cord. "I suppose my current state of existence would be further evidence of your reluctance to improvise and the need to create backup plans in advance."

Chelsea knew what She was talking about. "Oh, yeah. The brain mapping went ahead because Wheatley got sidetracked as he was going over to stop the procedure from taking place."

The two robots nodded together.

Chelsea looked to Wheatley. "So, did you really think that GLaDOS's startup was inevitable, or...?"

"I should probably explain that..."


	22. Wheatley's Story: Chapter D1d

**Wheatley's Story: Part D**  
Episode I, Chapter Four

* * *

Not long after Rick left the chamber, I heard the PA come on. "To ensure that sufficient power remains for core testing protocols, all safety devices have been disabled. The Enrichment Center respects your right to have questions or concerns about this policy."

I maneuvered to where the door had been and squinted up to the room where the entrance was. I saw activity at the top and waved to catch their attention. "Hey! ¡Oyé! Over here!"

Through the cracked windows, I saw the test subject turn around and look at me. I got my portal gun and fired at the wall under the entrance room. Within seconds, the other end of the portal opened and the test subject came through.

"Oh brilliant! You did find a portal gun! Oh,... you know, it - it just goes to show: people with brain damage are the real heroes in the end. Aren't they? At the end of the day? Brave! Pop a portal on the wall behind me there, and I'll meet you on the other side of the room."

I moved to the other side of the room so the subject could get a clear shot. She came through, and owing to there no longer being a platform there, she was briefly disorientated before she touched the floor.

As she walked over to me, I started twiddling my fingers. "Okay, listen. Let me, erm,... lay something on you here; it's pretty heavy." He took a hard swallow. "They told me... never, never, ever... to disengage myself from the Management Rail,... or I could die. But... we're out of options here, so, erm,... get ready to catch me,... alright? On the off chance that I'm not dead... erm, the moment... I jump off this thing."

The subject put her portal gun by the window, and after tossing my portal gun down to her, put it next to the other one.

I pulled my back out of the seat and held the armrests. "On three. Ready?"

She held out her hands and nodded.

"One... two... THREE!" I lunged forward, but I couldn't let go of the armrests. "That's high! That-That-That's too high! Isn't it? Really that?" I got back into the seat. "Okay, going on three gives you too much time to think about it."

I was quick to develop an alternative. "Let's, er, go on one this time. You ready?"

I threw myself forward. "ONE! Catch me! Catch me! Catch me! Catch me! Catch me!"

I landed with a hard thud on top of the test subject. "Auph! Ow..."

The subject pushed me off of her, and I proceeded to check myself. "I... am not dead! I'm not dead! Hahaha!"

The subject had gotten herself up and helped me get to my feet. "Ah, brilliant. Thank you. Great."

I walked over to an access panel and secretly flipped a hidden switch. "Er, plug me into this seat on the wall over here," I showed her a seat that had popped out, "and I'll show you something. You'll be impressed by it."

She appeared slightly confused, but when she checked my back, she understood what she had to do.

"Erm..." I got myself comfortable on the seat, "y-yeah, I can't do it with you watching. Seriously, I-I-I'm not joking; could you just... turn around for a second?"

She walked over to the window to pick up the portal guns, thereby turning her back toward me. I removed the light on my chest to reveal a lid for the plug in my back. Removing that, I unveiled a keypad that would enable me to enter the password for the access panel.

Once I typed the password and replaced the light, I called to the test subject. "Alright. You can turn around now."

As she did so, I thrust my back into the port, activating the access panel. "BAM! Secret panel! That I opened. While your back was turned." I pulled myself out of the seat, which receded back into the wall, and gave my plug lid to the test subject. "Pack me up and let's get out of here."

We traded our items with one another, and she walked around behind me to screw on the lid. Stacking the two guns together like soup cans, they merged into one single device that could fire two linked portals at once.

I gave her the portal gun and waved toward the open panel. "And off we go."

Though I had been through the facility many times without the Management Rail, this was the first time I had gone through the maintenance areas without the Management Rail. "Look at this! No rail to tell us where to go! Oh, this is brilliant; we can go wherever we want! Wait, just... hold on, where are we going? Seriously?" I slowed down and held the test subject to stop. "Hang on; let me just, er, get my bearings. Erm..." I looked around until I saw a rail running directly above the catwalk, "yeah, just... follow the rail actually."

We went on walking before the catwalk ran alongside a Pipe.

"Hello?" There was a turret in the pipe.

"Oh no..." I knew turrets were trouble.

"Hello?" the turret called again.

I gave a smile and a wave. "Yes, hello! No, we're not stopping!"

"Excuse me?"

I whispered to the test subject "Don't make eye contact, whatever you do."

"Hello?"

"Nope, thanks! We're good! Appreciate it!"

"Thanks anyway."

I pushed the test subject along the catwalk. "Keep moving, keep moving."

"Hello?"

The turret's voice faded.

"Hello?"

We entered an armoured door at the end of the catwalk.

"I'm different..."

Shutting the door behind us, all I could think was "That was close."

* * *

Opening the other door, I knew there would be bigger trouble awaiting us.

"Er, probably ought to bring you up to speed on something right now. ... Erm, in order to escape, we're gonna have to go... through _Her_ chamber," the subject seemed to know who I was referencing, "and, erm,... She will probably kill us if-if She's, erm, awake."

It sent chills down my spine to think about it. Even though She and I had had amicable moments in the past, I wasn't sure how She'd react to being reactivated after so many years.

"If you want to just call it quits," I gestured to the Observation Annex, "we can just sit here... forever. So, that's an option. Option A: sit here and do nothing. Option B: go through there, and if She's alive, She'll almost certainly kill us. So,... if you've got any reservations whatsoever about this plan, now would be a tremendous time to voice them."

I turned around, but the subject was gone. Through the windows, I could see a figure walking down the ruined hall toward Her chamber, and I raced to catch up, horrified of what might happen.

"Okay, I'm gonna lay my cards on the table: I don't want to do it. I don't want to go in there."

The door was opening, and the subject started to crawl under.

"NO! DON'T GO IN THERE! DON'T!"


End file.
